Emotions Flaring In Maryland Over Same-Sex Marriage.

Sources: Jamie Raskin and The Baltimore Sun

Back at the beginning of the month, the Maryland Senate met to discuss several of Gov. Ehrlich's bills (medical malpractice reform, restrictions on child sex offenders, witness-intimidation proposals, tougher penalties for minors caught driving drunk, etc.), and the most heated topic concerned gay marriage.

Despite rejection of a similar bill by House lawmakers last month, a Senate committee took up yesterday the emotionally charged debate over whether Maryland should ban same-sex marriage in its constitution.

Clergy, constitutional law experts and children of gay parents were among those who packed the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee room to speak out on the issue.

The marriage debate dominated the opening weeks of the legislature after a Baltimore judge sided with 19 gay men and women, ruling that Maryland's 33-year-old law defining marriage between a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The discussion shows few signs of dying down.

Most seemed unwilling to participate in the discussion about the bill, as if they'd rather be elsewhere...which is probably the case, as you can see:

The committee hearing dragged on for hours, and testimony on the governor's bills was delayed by a three-hour debate on gay marriage. Supporters of the governor were left waiting in hallways.

"You've got doctors, crime victims, police officers, the deputy secretary of corrections, the secretary of corrections, the state's attorney from Baltimore City," said Ehrlich's chief legislative aide, Alan Friedman. "It doesn't matter to me because I work across the street, but it's awfully inconsiderate to those people."

It gets beyond ridiculous here.

The hallway outside the committee room, furnished with a few couches and speakers broadcasting the proceedings inside, was packed for most of the day. Dr. Carol Ritter, a Towson gynecologist who has been active on medical malpractice issues, said she had written off the day to come testify.

"Maybe I should go shopping," she said as the gay marriage debate headed into its third hour.

About that time, Friedman arrived, stuck his head in the committee room long enough to hear the words "heterosexual marriage," and came back out.

"I've got M&Ms," he said. "For 5 bucks, they're yours. In an hour, it'll be 10."

Why did it come to this? Why such political grandstanding? What the hell was going on in there? Well...:

Sen. Nancy Jacobs, a Republican who represents Harford and Cecil counties, engaged in an impassioned debate with Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor from American University, over the influence of the Bible on modern law.

"As I read Biblical principles, marriage was intended, ordained and started by God - that is my belief," she said. "For me, this is an issue solely based on religious principals."

Raskin shot back that the Bible was also used to uphold now-outlawed statutes banning interracial marriage, and that the constitution should instead be lawmakers' guiding principle.

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible," he said.

Some in the room applauded, which led committee chairman Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Democrat from Montgomery County, to call for order. "This isn't a football game," he said.

Someone give that man a pat on the back for remembering this little thing called, "separation of church and state".

Does this really have to be such a big battle? Marriage didn't start out as a religious institution; it was about bloodlines and property rights. It wasn't associated with religion until after the life of Christ. It really shouldn't be this difficult to allow these people to have marriage rights. They shouldn't even have to be "allowed"--they should already have these rights as human beings.

In any case, Mr. Raskin has the right idea, and I wish him luck in his bid for the Maryland Senate. We need more people like him running for government offices.

Tags: [Jamie Raskin], [Maryland], [Ehrlich bills], [Maryland Senate], [separation of church and state], [the real history of marriage], [marriage is not a religious institution], [same-sex marriage], [gay marriage debate]